The following description sets forth the inventor's knowledge of related art and problems therein and should not be construed as an admission of knowledge in the prior art.
Watering devices which can be positioned several feet above the ground and which incorporate a single base spike structure have been known for some time. However, such devices have a drawback of being unstable when in use. When a sprinkler is attached to a vertical riser, the spray of the sprinkler creates a torque on the vertical riser and the single base spike which is located at the bottom of the watering device and inserted into the ground for stability. Furthermore, if the sprinkler is of an oscillating, rotary or pulsating type, the torque being applied to the base spike changes direction according to the direction the sprinkler is pointed.
As torque is applied to the base spike (caused by the outward flow of water from the sprinkler), the base spike has a tendency to move and create a cavity in the soil. The base spike can then move progressively further within such cavity as the sprinkler continues to operate. This process can continue until the sprinkler and base spike move away from the desired watering axis. The sprinkler and base spike can eventually fall to the ground, as the base spike becomes loose in the soil.
To alleviate this problem, some single spike bases with a vertical riser and sprinkler attached to the top, incorporate sprinklers having two opposing heads. One sprinkler head sprays in one direction while the other sprays in an opposite direction. This helps to eliminate or balance the torque applied to the base. This design also has drawbacks. In particular the sprinkler heads need to spray in opposing directions in order to maintain stability. However, a user may only want to water a narrow area (e.g. a 45 degree area near the sprinkler). This is not possible with the opposing head sprinkler, as one head needs to be approximately 180 degrees from the other head.
A telescoping tripod base, in which a sprinkler sits atop has also been known. See for example U.S. Pat. No. 4,824,020. However, this design suffers from a large footprint due to the telescoping tripod. If a user wanted to place the sprinkler in a narrow space (e.g. in between a row of bushes and a house), the user may not have enough room due to the large area taken up by the telescoping tripod base. Additionally, a telescoping tripod base is difficult to manufacture, expensive to produce and cumbersome to package.
Sprinkler bases having three spikes have also been known. However these sprinklers bases are not used with a vertical riser and therefore suffer from limited sprinkler coverage in a desired area such as shrubs and bushes. Without a vertical rod, the sprinkler cannot reach and spray over shrubs and bushes.
Additionally, the three spiked sprinkler bases known are not stable enough for a sprinkler atop a vertical rod. Some bases suffer from a non-symmetrical spike pattern which can lead to tilting or falling over of the sprinkler. Other bases suffer in that that the spikes used are not of the appropriate length (e.g. too short). This too can cause the sprinkler to fall over.
Yet another drawback of already known three spiked sprinkler bases is that they are heavy, bulky and inconvenient to ship and sell. That is, three spike bases have heretofore been manufactured as a single unit. This base is difficult to package and difficult to ship given the unusual and awkward dimensions of the sprinkler base.